Auditions for Total Drama Murder Mystery
by ObservantAlienScribbler
Summary: OCs needed for Total Drama fanfiction season in progress, where players have been tricked into fighting not just for the million, but for their very lives! (Or at least, that's what they've been led to believe.) "Audition Tapes" will also be posted in following updates, to keep up interest while I work on the project overall.
1. Chapter 1

I am so hyped for this project you guys! I've wanted to do something with this kinda element of interaction forever, and finally getting caught up on Total Drama just opened the floodgates in my head. I hope your OCs are ready!

This season on Total Drama, Chris wanted to take torturing his players to a whole new level; so he got some lawyers on it and pulled some strings, and after getting a bunch of players to audition and sign up for a revival "Return to the Island" Season of Total Drama, he and the others working on the show set things up so it appears they've all been hijacked by old players who've grown tired of the shows' antics. A fake player is planted and their death is staged. They're also told that one of their co-players, (another hired and planted player) is the murderer, and the one pulling the reigns on the new game. The 1 million dollars is still in play, but now the contestants, cut off from the outside world, are made to believe they're playing not just for the money, but not to die or let their friends be killed after elimination ceremonies, challenges, or just saying the wrong thing about the wrong previous cast member. Who will win? Who will survive? Will the contestants really remain fooled the whole competition, or will someone figure it out?

Name:

Age: (Any age 14+ allowed)

Gender and pronouns:

Appearance: (Physical characteristics, height, how they dress, and mannerisms or habits)

Lifestyle before TD: (Who did they live with? What's their money situation like? How do they feel about that? How many close friends did they have, any love interests at home? What are those close relationships like?)

Personality:

Current occupation: (Student in what kind of school and what are they studying, include part-time work, self-employment, or homemaking)

Goals for the long-term, if any:

Goals for the immediate future (1-5 years) if any:

Passion, if any:

Hobbies: (Can be committed or time-wasters)

Have they watched Total Drama's previous seasons? If so, how do they feel about it? The show overall? Chris? Previous players?:

Strengths and skills:

Weaknesses and fears:

Likes and favorites:

Dislikes and absolute NOPES:

How's their physical condition? Fit? Fat? Chubby? Average? Small? Any illnesses or medical conditions or disorders?:

Values: (What's important to them? What drives their usual decisions in life? Family? Friends? Financial security? Health? Independence? Honesty? Leadership? Freedom? Power? Ideally I'd like 3-4 for this project, but more or less isn't a crime)

Let's talk love. You can send me multiple characters, and you can request for those characters to be paired together, but I can't guarantee their romance will be a central deal. _Especially_ if I don't find myself organically feeling the chemistry between the characters myself while I'm working on it. So, if your character's available and open to love, what kind of people would they be likely to get a crush on? All sexualities welcome. Romance is never guaranteed, but it's a possibility. (Also let me know if you don't want it to be a possibility for your character, or if you'd like me to greenlight any romantic plots with you before I work them in):

What do they look for in a friend or ally?: (It's a tough game. Some players will try to go it alone, but many will seek out help to stay in until we get to the finals, not just romantic interests. And even if they're not for official alliances, I don't want your character to end up besties with someone you think they'd hate on a spiritual level)

Are you open to the idea of your character being the 'murderer'?: (This means your character would be the 'perpetrator' and not in line for winning, but clues would be planted pointing to their involvement, their tastes reflected in challenges and punishments, and their influence stays as one of the main antagonists for the whole game. Saying no means they will not be the murderer, but agreeing means that they MIGHT be the murderer, as I don't want anyone to know before I've finished the story if I can help it.)

And, finally- what are your character's current plans for the million dollars, assuming they're not the murderer? Are those up for any kind of debate? Does anyone else have an influence on their use of it? Is their reason strong enough for them to keep playing for the money with everyone's lives at stake?:

I'll let you know if I accept your character or not as soon as possible after you message me with the application details, and the main reasons I would reject are 1) there already being 1-3 characters I think fill your characters' likely role in my story pretty nicely or 2) they're too Mary-Sue. And it's gonna really pain me to turn you down on this point, but I'll do it for the sake of this project- I expect self-inserts, I have no problem with that, but if I can't bend your character into a shape I find a believable participant in the universe, I can't use them, I'm sorry.

Also, apologies if your character gets "murdered"/eliminated early. If it's possible for me to find a way they can be included later, I will, but since most eliminated characters will appear to be 'murdered' to the characters, to keep up the illusion I can't have many surprise guests back. It's nothing personal to your characters, I may end up eliminating someone I really like early on, I just have to eliminate _someone_ first, sadly.

I'll PM you to let you know when I've added your character to my list, and from this story I plan to post follow up chapters; little shorts of each character making the decision to apply for "Total Drama Return to the Island" and making their audition tape. I'll also update everyone when applications are closed and when I have an idea of when I'll start the main series. Hope to hear from you!


	2. Author's Note and Apologies

SO sorry for just dropping off the face of the planet. Turns out I couldn't motivate myself to start writing and balance my university life and work at once.

My hope is that now that I'm home, with little to get in the way but (hopefully) a part-time job for the next few months and a few household chores, I want to finally do this story as I meant to. There are a few main issues with this-

One: I think planning out a lot of characters' immediate removals from the very beginning is going to drive me nuts. Who's going to stick it to the end and have tons of content and development and plot? Who's going to be gone chapter two and have an angry creator behind them who waited for this for months? If I were in their shoes how would that make me feel?

Two: Choosing the murderer is going to drive me nuts.

Three: Continuing to drag this out and make you guys wait for any content whatsoever forever as I try to draft out the whole thing novel style and redraft and edit is going to drive me nuts, especially with my other projects in my brain.

Basically, I'm as tired of waiting for this as you guys are, and I'm tired of making you guys wait. I'm also a bit antsy about how to fairly represent everyone's characters.

My proposition: recently I've wanted to start writing some hobby fics and stories I'm not sure how I want to end and yada yada, with the assistance of a gaming system I've come to know and love in the recent year. Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition, with a lot of homebrew and modification as I feel the need, I think could really help me in my writing and brainstorming in general; saying "how might this fight go if I leave it up to the dice? If I run through the battle 9 times, who won at least 5 of those times, if I want a really solid representation of who's stronger? Is it really reasonable for this character to be able to do this? Is this character way too strong the way I'm presenting them, or is this challenge just favoring them?"

So I was thinking I could start with this series. Take the candidates for murderer and use a dice roll to pick them, then assign everyone the human race, varied classes from in and out of homebrew, and assign them stats, speeds, feats, items, and skill proficiencies. I'll roll in small level ranges based loosely on age and the time I assume they'd have had available to build their proficiency in their class, but the character levels could be 2-5 and will be leveled throughout based on successful rolls, wins in the challenges, and generally cool moves they pull off relevant to their class. ACTUAL death is unlikely, but hitpoints will be rolled regardless, and considering the contestants we have, some might be violent enough for them to come into play. I'll mainly roll the dice through the planning process of each chapter, to see if the character makes that jump, if the contestant sees through their ally's lies, to see if they somehow manage to screw up that last easy step in the race, then I'll go back with that as my outline and draft out the chapter. The outline will not be set in stone, but for the sake of fairness I won't be pulling many big punches either. If someone dies, is voted off, or generally screws up at a really maddening time, I'll have to decide if it's maddening for the right reasons or a fluke of the dice that would rob the story of something important. Eliminations will be at the mercy of three judges unbeknownst to them- the "murderer," Chris, and the guest host introducing the day's challenge in the roll of evil minion to the murderer. By general perceived performance that day(secretly estimated by me based on success rolls during challenge, success at stealthily breaking a rule, etcetera), a bottom two will be chosen, and the judges will vote someone off from those bottom two based on their personal preferences of the contestants, judgments of what's important in the challenge, and so on.

I feel like this would make the playing field a lot more fair than just me choosing based on which characters I want to keep around, or who I have the best initial ideas for. I would use the dice rolls to plan out the initial plot outline, plan and draft like normal, maybe rolling dice and doing a bit of math along the way when I change things or add scenes, and then ultimately hopefully a true reality show plot emerges- insightful people trusting the wrong people or seeing through more than might be safe for them, weak people having a small shot at pulling off skills they haven't tried before, highly talented people usually coming out on top in some areas but getting kicked off their high horse when they least expect it because they roll a natural 1 at the final throw, or their weaker opponent throws a natural 20, or they happen to have a weakness or disadvantage against their seemingly weaker opponent. It leaves me not knowing who'll win and free to ship and fantasize and love all that I want, while still keeping myself grounded in what's fair and who would have won.

So what do you guys think? I'll never get started if I wait for all of you to respond before I start, but I'd really like to hear your opinions as I work on Chapter 1. Regardless of if I do this dice roll system or not for the series overall, I'd like to hear your opinions on the idea.

 _Hopefully_ I can buckle down and get something out in a week's time, but I'm trying to get a summer job so just in case they decide to spend a heavy week of training I'm not accustomed to, I'm not going to promise that. We've already seen just how reliable I am under pressure for this part of my life, sadly- plus I've lost more notes in the transition from school to home than I'd like to admit.

 _So_ sorry you've all had to wait so long, and flattered you're still around to hear my explanation.

Hope some of the excitement is still there!

Ari


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